Midwest to See Lower NatGas Supplies This Winter – Can M-U Help?
S&P Global Platts published analysis last Friday looking at supply and demand for natural gas in the Midwestern region of the country. Platts says supplies to the region from places like the Bakken, Midcontinent (SCOOP/STACK), and Rockies will decrease this winter–by a lot. But then, demand in the region will decrease too, given the slumping economy because of the coronavirus pandemic. However, it looks to us like maybe there’s an opportunity for Marcellus/Utica gas, which travels to the Midwest via several pipelines, to make up the difference between supply and demand. The region will still need more gas than supplies available.
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Last week MDN told you that Enbridge had begun testing its Weymouth, Massachusetts compressor station project, the final piece of the company’s $452 million Atlantic Bridge expansion project (see 
Sounding downright nasty and mean, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Pat McDonnell has ordered Sunoco Logistics Partners (Energy Transfer) to reroute part of the Mariner East 2X pipeline around Marsh Creek Lake State Park, following a spill of nontoxic drilling mud that ended up in Marsh Creek Lake in Chester County. McDonnell uses combative and incendiary words like Sunoco “blatantly disregarded the citizens” of Chester County, has been “careless” and is guilty of “unlawful actions.” In a rather uppity tone, McDonnell says he will “not stand for more of the same” and he is “demanding a proper cleanup” of the site. Sunoco has been working diligently to clean up the spill since it happened.
Pin Oak Midstream, a subsidiary of Pin Oak Energy Partners, a relatively young Marcellus/Utica driller based in Akron, OH, has purchased most of the pipeline assets of Laurel Mountain Midstream for an undisclosed amount. The assets include 1,050 miles of natural gas-gathering pipelines and five compressor stations located in three Pennsylvania counties.
In Lansing, NY, just outside of Planet Ithaca in Tompkins County, the local utility company, NYSEG, wanted to build a short pipeline in 2017 to supply new customers with natural gas, but was blocked by crazies who irrationally hate fossil fuels (see 
Enbridge’s Weymouth compressor station project, the final piece of the $452 million Atlantic Bridge expansion project, has begun testing in preparation to go online. As part of the testing, the station will, on occasion, release a small amount of (gasp!) natural gas into the air. Run for the hills! Get out while you can!
Anti-fossil fuel zealots like the nutty Sierra Club have successfully delayed completion of Equitrans Midstream’s 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline from West Virginia to southern Virginia with lawsuits. The project is now 92% done and in the ground. The zealots successfully convinced Democrat federal judges to overturn key permits issued by several government agencies. One of those overturned permits, issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for endangered species, has just been reissued. Score a victory for the good guys.
In late 2018 a fringe environmental group called the Coalition to Reroute NEXUS (CORN), along with the City of Oberlin, Ohio, filed yet another lawsuit (with the D.C. Court of Appeals) to nullify the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) original decision to approve the NEXUS Pipeline project that runs through Ohio (see 
It’s not unusual for companies in the business of delivering methane molecules to customers (the local gas utility company) to invest in the long-haul gas pipelines that deliver gas into their system. Consolidated Edison (ConEd), which serves much of New York City and its suburbs with natural gas, is one such company.
In early August the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) finally issued a favorable environmental assessment (EA) for an amended request by PennEast Pipeline to break the project into two phases–building the pipeline through Pennsylvania in Phase One, and through New Jersey in Phase Two (see 
There’s potential trouble brewing for pipeline companies that own and operate big interstate pipelines that flow Marcellus/Utica Shale molecules to other regions. (Trouble for gas pipelines in other regions, too.) Some of the contracts for the earliest pipelines built or repurposed to flow M-U molecules out of the northeast are expiring. The customers, in many cases, were the drillers themselves (instead of utility companies and other gas customers). Drillers are pulling back and not likely to renew those contracts, at least not at the prices they signed originally.
What will happen with major natural gas (and oil) pipeline projects after the November Presidential election? You might guess if Biden wins (God perish the thought) there will be no new pipeline projects anywhere, and if Trump wins (our lips to God’s ears) new projects will appear out of the blue. But it’s not quite that simple according to S&P Global Platts.
In early June an Obamadroid federal judge vacated a permit for the Weymouth compressor station, the last piece of Spectra Energy/Enbridge’s Atlantic Bridge pipeline project–a project which took years to build (see